More random newspaper articles

I was wading through the Australian newspapers archive beta (http://ndpbeta.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/home), and to cut a long story ended up discovering the equivalent here in NZ (http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bin/paperspast) where I have today learnt about the Waddesdon alms cow. Yes, an alms cow - if you want a free drink of milk, no problem in Waddesdon!

Two obvious questions spring to mind:
* great story, but why couldn't Wing also have had an alms cow?
* does it strike anyone else as slightly bizarre that I have discovered the existence of said cow from a 1906 edition of Wellington's Evening Post?

Hunting accident

It's funny the random things you come across.......I was just doing a websearch to see if I could find anything useful about Leopold de Rothschild's racing activities (as distinct from the foxhunting at Ascott), and came across a newspaper report from January 1899 reporting that Leo had broken his nose when a treebranch hit him across the face while he was out hunting near Windsor.

This was in the New York Times archives, of all places!

Wave your hand

How many of you are subscribed to one or more of the excellent Rootsweb mailing lists? There's more than one list covering Buckinghamshire (and plenty for other counties and surnames of course), and even if you feel you can't keep up with the volume of emails they are archived on line for you to search or browse at your leisure.

If you're on one of these lists, it's a good idea to wave your hand if someone else pops up researching the same surname in a similar area as you, just in case they know something that might be relevant. Recently I did just that, and it helped uncover a potential error in my own tree where I'd attributed Brightwell's HOLLYMAN's first bride Elizabeth HESTER to a particular baptism in Long Crendon (where the marriage took place in 1786), but it turns out that particular baby Elizabeth may have already married someone else in a neighbouring village. While I'd ruled out any earlier marriages for her in Long Crendon and thus identified her as a likely candidate, I hadn't looked elsewhere.

I'm sure we all know that just because some is "of Long Crendon" doesn't mean they were born there, but if you do find a suitable baptism of someone of the right name and right timeframe in the right place, remember to always remain open to the possiblity that it's still not the right person. Someone out there might just have evidence to the contrary or an alternative theory that's equally possible.

Wing War Memorial

I received some excellent news today. The renovations to the Wing War Memorial are about to begin. I know those of you that have visited All Saints Church and seen the memorial in the churchyard in recent years have been saddened by the damage time has done to it, and will be happy to see it restored. (If you would like to contribute some funds toward this, please let me know and I can put you in touch with the appropriate people).

In other news, I now have the December 2008 issue of Family Tree Magazine, which mentioned the Wing One Place Study in its article about researching in Buckinghamshire, Berkshire and Oxfordshire - thanks, Family Tree Magazine! The entire issue was full of interesting articles so I do recommend that you pick up a copy.

Remembrance Day

Perhaps you'd like to take a moment today to check my list of Wing men serving in World War I, and let me know if your ancestor or relative from Wing should be on there but isn't? There's also links from that page to those serving in WWII or at other times.

Election fever

Yesterday it was general election time here in New Zealand. Not quite as much razzmatazz as this week's US presidential election, thankfully, nor was there a several-hour-long wait to vote!

I know how much fun visitors to NZ have trying to pronounce placenames, so I'm sure you'll all be delighted to learn that Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga is the new Member of Parliament for the electorate I live in, Maungakieie. (Sam is Samoan rather than Maori)

Isn't it nice to live in a time and place where all adults have the right to vote?

Family Tree Magazine and The National Archives Podcast Series

I understand that the Wing One Place Study website was mentioned in an article in the December 2008 issue of Family Tree Magazine. A big hello to any new visitors that find me that way! I hope you find the site both useful and interesting, and please do email me to let me know which families in Wing you are connected to.

The mag won't have arrived here in NZ yet - I will have to trot down to the specialist magazine shop to find out whether that particular publication generally comes into the country via airfreight, otherwise I won't see it for months, if at all!

A few posts ago I mentioned that you need to be careful if looking at the WO364 series of army records at Ancestry, as the first page it displays isn't necessary the first page of that soldier's record. I've been catching up on The National Archives podcasts, and I see that tip was also mentioned in their discussion about that series (which was of course digitized from the originals they hold). If you haven't discovered those podcasts yet, head on over to check them out - they're also available via iTunes if that's easier for you than downloading the files manually or using another podcatcher.

November update

This month I have another batch of baptisms for you! These new records cover from 1837 (including a couple at the end of 1836) to half way through 1870. The 1214 baptisms bring the total number of baptisms on the website up to 2014, with the period 1813 to May 1870 now covered.

As I've mentioned before in this blog, while this baptism register is included as an extracted batch in the IGI there are too many omissions in the IGI version to make it reliable. There's also more information on each original entry than you will find in the IGI, most noteably father's occupation and abode, but also sometimes other snippets like birth day and time! If you've relied on the IGI to provide some of the entries in your Wing family trees and haven't yet looked at the original parish registers, please consider taking the time to review my baptism transcriptions - if nothing else, you will have confirmed the information you have on hand, and there's a fair chance you'll gain some useful new information or some new entries as well.

Other things that have been updated this month:
* a new brickmaker, George RUST, has been located
* a new trial witness, William LATHWELL, has been added to the crime page
* a new marriage stray, for Jesse BOLTON and Emma SMITH, has been provided
* three new BOLTONs serving in WW1 have been added (thanks to Janice for the tipoff on her grandfather's record in the National Roll, which led me to the other two)